Is 'white-Hispanic murderer' being violated by media's equivalent of a lynch mob?

By
Jack Kelly

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The narrative was right, but the facts were wrong, said Newsweek Editor Evan Thomas of the Duke lacrosse case. Do you remember it? Many journalists may regret they hadn't.

White racism is a constant source of violence, many journalists believe. But violence by blacks against whites is far more common. So when an incident appears to support the narrative, journalists pounce.

The news media's equivalent of a lynch mob formed immediately after a black stripper said she'd been raped by three Duke lacrosse players during a party March 13, 2006. A journalistic horde descended upon Durham, but not to dig for facts.

"The media quickly latched onto a narrative too seductive to check: rich, wild, white jocks had brutalized a working class, black mother of two," wrote Rachel Smolkin in a 2007 retrospective for the American Journalism Review.

Had real reporting been done, a grave injustice could have been averted. The stripper made the story up. The players were victims of "a tragic rush to accuse," said North Carolina's attorney general, and of a prosecutor who saw in the news media's narrative an opportunity to win black votes.

The prosecutor was disbarred for "dishonesty, deceit, fraud and misrepresentation," but the journalists who smeared the Duke lacrosse players suffered no penalty. Ms. Smolkin could find only one who apologized to them for the false and malicious things she'd written, and vowed to be more careful in the future. Ms. Smolkin doubted others would follow her example.

"The media's collective memory is notoriously short," she said. "So does another rush to judgment await some hapless citizen thrust into the media's glare? Almost certainly."

Ms. Smolkin was prescient. The news media lynch mob formed again after Neighborhood Watch Volunteer George Zimmerman shot black teenager Trayvon Martin during an altercation in Sanford, Fla Feb. 26.

This was murder, motivated by racism, many declared. MSNBC guest host Karen Finney linked the shooting to comments made by GOP presidential candidates Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum.

"In the case of Trayvon, those festering stereotypes had lethal consequences," she said.
Ms. Finney leaped to that conclusion without benefit of evidence. Now evidence is emerging, and journalists are "scrambling to make the facts fit the story they've already written," said Jim Treacher of the Daily Caller.

The two argued, then Mr. Martin punched him, jumped on top of him, and banged his head against the sidewalk, Mr. Zimmerman said. His story is consistent with the evidence, police say. Eyewitnesses backed Mr. Zimmerman's account.

Trayvon Martin was more than six feet tall. Mr. Zimmerman is 5'9." So he may have acted in self defense. Even so, Mr. Zimmerman would not be absolved of blame if it were he who provoked the confrontation. A Sanford police officer thought he should have been charged with "unnecessary killing to prevent unlawful act."

But manslaughter is not murder, and there is no evidence of a racial motive. Black friends of Mr. Zimmerman -- one a former CNN reporter -- say he lacks prejudice.

As evidence emerged, some journalists tried to protect the narrative from it. NBC edited a 911 tape to make it appear Mr. Zimmerman had engaged in racial profiling, when he had not. A grainy portion of a police surveillance tape it broadcast indicates Mr. Zimmerman suffered no injuries, ABC claimed. A higher resolution clip of the same tape shows a gash on the back of his head.

Mr. Zimmerman's mother is Peruvian, which makes him as much Hispanic as President Barack Obama is black. He's a registered Democrat. This has no bearing on his guilt or innocence. But it complicates the narrative that white Republicans are somehow to blame, and casts doubt on the wisdom of Mr. Obama's decision to interject himself into the case.

The police "acted stupidly" when they arrested Harvard Prof. Henry Louis Gates, the president declared in 2009, only to have to walk his comments back after the evidence made it clear that arrest was justified. He may have to do so again.

Our legal system has a presumption of innocence. It would behoove liberals generally -- and liberal journalists in particular -- to remember why.

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